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zafu.com Helps Women Find Their Perfect Jeans

Online Resource Provides Women With Personalized Jeans Recommendations From Leading Brands

A pair of jeans -- considered by many to be the single most important item in a woman's closet, is also the most challenging clothing item to find. Ninety percent of women have a difficult time finding jeans that fit.* Women bravely charge into dressing rooms with piles of jeans, often leaving empty handed and disheartened.

The solution to finding a great pair of jeans launched today at zafu.com. Based on five years of proprietary fit research, this new online resource asks women a few simple questions about their fit, size and style preferences, and provides personalized recommendations from an ever growing database of hundreds of styles from over 70 of the country's top denim and apparel brands.

Here's how it works:

-- Women visit zafu.com, a free service, and spend two minutes answering 11 questions about their fit issues with jeans, body shape, style preferences and size. No measurements are required.

-- The information is passed through zafu's proprietary algorithms and a personal profile is created

-- zafu then searches its denim database consisting of hundreds of styles of jeans from over 70 brands, and makes recommendations on which pairs best suit their individual fit, style and size needs

-- Women click on their desired pair of jeans where they can read a personal review of how it will fit, a detailed description of the jean and see multiple images of the jean. They are then directed to an online retailer for purchase, or they may print out a copy of zafu's recommendations to take to a store.

-- zafu enables women to save their profile making the process even easier next time they return

-- 94% of these searches result in finding great fitting jeans

The continued popularity of jeans and ongoing growth in online shopping fueled zafu's goal of being a resource to help women find their dream jeans online. Although these two segments are growing, there is relatively low penetration of jeans sales online. Women are skeptical about buying jeans online for good reason. Women and online retailers agree that fit is the major obstacle between a woman and a great pair of jeans. In addition, until now, there has been a lack of effective resources to help women navigate through the seemingly endless options.

Market research firm NPD Group reports women's jeans sales reached $7.8 billion for the 12 months through March 2006 -- a 10.8% increase over the $7.04 billion reported during the same period a year ago. This data is on top of a 13.7% growth rate of jean sales between 2004-2005. Forrester Research states that retail sales online are expected to increase at a 19% annual compounded rate through 2008. This data demonstrates the continued online growth in the apparel sector.

"A great pair of jeans is an essential part of a woman's wardrobe, but finding it is a huge challenge as most women know," says Rob Holloway, company Founder and CEO. "We have at last solved this problem. zafu is the result of years of advanced fit research. By using zafu it is much easier for women to find their perfect jeans -- whether they shop online or take our recommendations on their next trip to the store."

ABOUT ZAFU

zafu was founded in 2005 and is located in a converted bakery in Emeryville, California, just across the Bay from San Francisco. The site launched on August 2, 2006. Learn more about how to find the perfect fit for designer jeans and top brand jeans at www.zafu.com.

zafu has drawn on five years of comprehensive fit research and algorithm development from their sister company Archetype Solutions. zafu has combined this knowledge with additional work measuring, assessing and photographing thousands of women trying on hundreds of pairs of jeans. In doing so, zafu has identified key body shapes for women and created algorithms that enable them to ask a woman a few simple questions and use her answers to search their database of hundreds of jeans to recommend those that will best fit her. At zafu.com, there is real science behind the art of finding that perfect jean.

The zafu team has deep experience in retail, statistical analysis, fashion, pattern making, software development and retail marketing. zafu is a part of Archetype Solutions, a venture backed company founded in 2000 and the industry leader in the area of fit. Learn more about Archetype at www.archetype-solutions.com.

* zafu focus group research Zafu.com Has Good Genes, Helping Women Find the Perfect Fit